Did you read it? — “Unapologetically a nurse”

How does the phrase “angels in uniform” make you feel? Proud? Appreciated? Misunderstood?

In a recent piece published by The Huffington Post, one nurse rejects the term “angel,” along with the faultless, pure and obedient typecast that such a weighty comparison entails.

Read on to discover why the article’s author believes that shedding the role of angels is the best, and perhaps the only way to help non-nurses understand, and therefor more accurately respect, the work that nurses really do:

I’m No Angel

I sit here starting at a blank computer screen, filled with quiet concern. It’s simply that I have so many things to say to about the nineteen million and counting nurses across the planet, and not enough time in the world to say it.

The author does, however, move toward something very specific and important that she has to say about herself and her fellow nurses.

Nurses, she says, are not angels placed on earth to serve, as they are so often thought to be.

We are not diminutive and submissive and gentle souls that kiss boo-boos.We are not the starched white caps and perfectly polished shoes that history books portray. Nor are we fishnet stockings and naughty rendezvous in dark corners. We have been glamorized and fetishized and placed on a pedestal unlike any other profession, and yet the definition of what we are is only surpassed by the list of what we are not.Our Dirty Little Secret

Sonja Mitrevska-Schwartzbach, BSN, RN, CCRN is a registered nurse in the cardiothoracic intensive care unit at a level one trauma center in the tri-state area. She left her corporate career in 2010 to pursue a degree in nursing, and has since worked as a nurse in cardiac transplant and heart failure as well as intensive care. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Nursing and a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature, both from Rutgers University. She is currently a nurse blogger for the Huffington Post. Sonja and her husband, Joseph, reside in central New Jersey. Despite being native to the state, they did not find love at the Jersey Shore, and only 50 percent of the couple endorses spray tans. By Sonja Mitrevska-Schwartzbach